


Known

by Katherine



Category: A Companion to Wolves - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, The Forest House - Marion Zimmer Bradley
Genre: F/M, Psychic Wolves, Scent names
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 04:57:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5992366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the shadows there, lying on the rushes, Gaius's wolf looked the same grey as the hearth-smoke and his yellow eyes gleamed in the light from the fire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Known

When Gaius was recovering in Bendeigid the Druid's home, before he felt able to do much more than hobble around the roundhouse, his brother stayed next to his bed. In the shadows there, lying on the rushes, the wolf looked the same grey as the hearth-smoke and his yellow eyes gleamed in the light from the fire.

The first mealtime that Gaius was awake, he hardly recognised his own hunger, focused instead on the ache from his fresh injuries. His brother leapt up onto the solid chest placed at the foot of the bed, at the same time pushing prey-scent into Gaius's mind. The girl Eilan came close and set down a haunch of some fresh-killed creature. Gaius smiled at her, making an effort to keep his teeth covered as his mind was washed with his brother's satisfaction at the blood. Not needing to know the details of wolfish enjoyment, Gaius turned his attention to his own food which Eilan held out to him.

 

While still he was still healing and the walk left him tired, Gaius was glad to be out in the spring sunshine. His brother stretched out on the grass beside him, abandoning his usual dignity. The wolf actually let himself be decked with flowers. First, the small blossoms that Eilan and Dieda set aside from making garlands for the next day's Beltane festival. Then he tolerated young Senara putting a small, lopsided wreath of bluebells on his head.

He shook the stray flowers off as they all started back, but kept his head high and still under the wreath, ears pricked against the already-fading bluebells.

 

Eilan felt dangerously close to him, there in the dark lit by the Beltane fires. "Some people," Gaius told her quietly, "speak of not scent-names but soul-names. And that the wolves do not give those names, but know them."

Gaius's own scent-name is ancient rock scoured bare by wind. He wondered what Eilan's name would be, and had barely formed the question when his brother stood up and moved three slow steps closer to her. His wolf stood by Eilan for a long, long moment, muzzle a little open.

What had to be her scent-name unfolded in Gaius's mind. He perceived salt water in motion, with an impression of time passing. _Waves that are closing over._ He imagined drowning, and as quickly shied away from that identification. He experienced her name as looming fate.


End file.
